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I’ve been through a lot too. Injuries, surgeries, deaths, loss, betrayal and injustice. I’ve suffered the loss of five children in four miscarriages. I was stabbed 17 times, thrown down a marble staircase, had my head slammed into the floor repeatedly and then was strangled unconscious. I nearly died. The next day in the hospital my attacker’s father threatened me with a rather large knife to keep silent. The threatened eviseration still causes me flashbacks.

The flashbacks got so bad six weeks ago that I was in a really dark place. This video helped me. I hope it helps you.

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Bobbie - I can only imagine the desperation that would cause someone to post a statement like that to a bunch of strangers. I mean, we're mostly good pholks on this board, but we're strangers to you. We don't know what you've been through. We don't know what to tell you.

Talk to someone in person. A priest. Any priest. Call. Tell him you need to talk now. If you work, does your company offer an Employee Personal Assistance Plan or something like that? Call a counselor. Any counselor. Tell her you need to talk now. There are hotlines out there. Call a hotline. You won't even have to tell the person on the other end that you need to talk now. They'll already know.

We're all just wounded warriors in the army of the Lord. Sounds like you've got a lot of wounds. But you posted to a specifically Catholic board, so I assume you must have some faith in the Lord. You want some help. We don't know how to help, other than to pray for you. But we want you to get some help, and hopefully some relief. (In that regard, I've sometimes thought that, as bad as Jesus' sufferings were on his last Thursday night and Friday, it was 20 hours of really terrible suffering, but then it was done. Sometimes that seems better than year after year of just-plain-bad suffering. But it's not up to us to decide - we don't get to choose.)

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Bobbie - I can only imagine the desperation that would cause someone to post a statement like that to a bunch of strangers. I mean, we're mostly good pholks on this board, but we're strangers to you. We don't know what you've been through. We don't know what to tell you.

Talk to someone in person. A priest. Any priest. Call. Tell him you need to talk now. If you work, does your company offer an Employee Personal Assistance Plan or something like that? Call a counselor. Any counselor. Tell her you need to talk now. There are hotlines out there. Call a hotline. You won't even have to tell the person on the other end that you need to talk now. They'll already know.

We're all just wounded warriors in the army of the Lord. Sounds like you've got a lot of wounds. But you posted to a specifically Catholic board, so I assume you must have some faith in the Lord. You want some help. We don't know how to help, other than to pray for you. But we want you to get some help, and hopefully some relief. (In that regard, I've sometimes thought that, as bad as Jesus' sufferings were on his last Thursday night and Friday, it was 20 hours of really terrible suffering, but then it was done. Sometimes that seems better than year after year of just-plain-bad suffering. But it's not up to us to decide - we don't get to choose.)

Call somebody.

Let us know if you get any help, any relief.

You can call someone you trust. They will help. Even when I am down, God is always with you.

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Bobbie, I too have been in a very dark place indeed a few times. I suffer bipolar disorder and for twenty years I was in the revolving door of a psychiatric hospital seriously mentally ill. My children were taken from me, my marriage collapsed and my ex husband as good as 'kicked me out the house'. I then went into 6 years of poverty, homelessness and serious illness after what I thought was a stable and financially very secure marriage.......now and then I was suicidal with one serious attempt.

I had a look at your Profile and you have said little and last visited on 9th December according to your Profile.

All I can say is pray when you can and as you can - and don't be the least afraid to share with The Lord your despair or even your anger. After all, He who knows all things - knows your inner confusions and sufferings (and intensity of them) before we speak them. I recall once and in a state of great anger saying to The Lord "I really hope you have big shoulders, Mate, because here I come again." There is nothing saintly nor holy about my journey with mental illness - I was the very faulted human, very faulted and weak. I remain that quite human weak and faulted person and embrace it (another story).

I read again @CatherineMpost. She has come out on the other side of shocking circumstances and I have come out of my own dark circumstances. There was nothing obviously miraculous about arriving on the other side for me, it was a hard, painful and a depressing journey, at times it felt like despair and perhaps it was indeed despair of any Hopes, Peace or Joy and happiness in life ever again.

On ‎6‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 3:54 PM, Luigi said:

I can only imagine the desperation that would cause someone to post a statement like that to a bunch of strangers

Luigi, above, has said it.

Don't give up and I know that is going to be appallingly difficult rather often. No one at all is going to go through life without problems - some will be terrible problems and by sharing experiences, one can be helpful to others. My prayer is that you will come out on the other side, be able to share your story and support others. We can be supportive of others because we too have been in dreadful circumstances.... we are not 'talking from a book'.

I am wondering @bobbiemorgan where you are now on the 29th December, having first posted on 6th December and visited again once on the 9th December - if I am reading your Profile correctly.

Here on Phatmass you will find tremendous support even virtual companionship for your journey. One member and I met on Catholic Answers and now over 8 years down the line we remain close confidants and email friends and regularly correspond. She resides in the USA and I am in Australia. At the time we 'met' she was in a shocking abusive relationship. It is now all resolved for her after a dreadful and fearful journey - and she is now in a happy place.

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Catherine has shared an excellent video (I found it on You Tube for my own sharing purposes). It will not be precisely the same, nor even close possibly, story for all, but it is an important story nevertheless of a journey with mental illness and a suicide attempt. One's own story might be completely different; nevertheless, there will be things in the video that sort of jump out at one - an invitation by Grace and The Holy Spirit to reflect......to pause and think about it.

To me, the most important statement made in the video was "I built up a support network". Right at the beginning in Genesis, God mused to Himself "It is not good for man to be alone" HERE

And St Paul wrote to the Galatians: "Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfil The Law of Christ" HERE

In the video is a young man who still suffers serious mental illness; however, he can now control the illness - it does not control him. That implies a learning process - a highly unique and personal process for one and all and most likely a hit and miss process. It implies that we can learn to constructively respond in negative circumstances, not have circumstances dictate and control one destructively, dragging one wherever they will all over the place. It does not mean that one is successful immediately and always. What it does mean is that one is willing to engage with negative circumstances and to strive to do so constructively in a hit and miss type of journey if necessary - that one is not going to abandon the quest because of apparently failing. Important to note that "failing" is not yet "failed".

@bobbiemorgan here on Phatmass could be a support network............ if you will let us.

Also, there is always the Private Messaging facility for confidentiality.